


Nepetism

by Anonymous



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-01
Updated: 2014-10-01
Packaged: 2018-02-19 13:31:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2390087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nepeta has been alive for centuries, now, and she only remembers what she wants to remember. Only worries when she wants to worry.</p><p>For Rose's picky, tricky mind, it doesn’t work that way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nepetism

Their new planet is purrfectly fantastic, in Nepeta’s esteemed opinion. Humans have some super weird ideas about sunlight, but given that it’s hot and heavy and harmless on this world, she’s more than happy about it. 

Like most of the trolls, she’s still more active at night than during the day, when the rich light of the new moons- three of them, all different colors and so small compared to what she’s used to- best agrees with her huntress’s eyes.

But since she’s a god now, and sleep is optional, she spends her days sprawled out on whatever cliff she’s stumbled across in her explorations, fielding the occasional very cute request from the citizens of this world who think of her as a better god of love than Dirk, and mostly soaking up the rich weight of sunlight.

She hadn’t ever known light could have a weight, before.

Kanaya has a lot of free time during the days as well. And just like Nepeta, she loves the sunlight.

Where it makes Nepeta feel heavy and lazy and stuffed with slow, syrupy delight, though, Kanaya is buoyed by it, footsteps airy and weightless in the way that, during their session, Nepeta had only ever seen when she was fussing around Vriskers. She snuffs quietly, amused. Sunlight and Vriskalight, and Roselight too.

Nepeta likes watching Kanaya hold her daylight courts. Jade is purrhaps Nepeta’s favourite human, but ever since she started working with Dirk and Equihiss and Pawllux all the time, she’s taking on more and more of a troll schedule, and all her adherents have caught on, coming to beseech the hornless god of creation at night, and sticking to Kanaya while the sun is up.

Today, Kanaya has a whole herd of little hybrid wrigglers packed around her, and even though the stoney cliff’s edge is too far up for her quiet, calm voice to reach, Nepeta knows she’s telling them stories. Stories about Alternia, or Beforus, or imaginary worlds that probably exist anyway, because Paradox Space is big. She’s gesturing in huge, graceful arcs, strands of her Spacey powers drawing the wrigglers up into the air around her, moving them with the motions of the tale. 

If she were down there, the giggles and the voices would probably make her want to play too. But from this distance, small and silent, it’s just hypnotic.

Walking is optional for all of them now, so when the soft whisper of crushed grass cuts over the breeze, Nepeta rolls languidly over to stare at the newcomer. She doesn't actually need to worry, but just in case it’s one of the citizens here to ask for her blessing, and she'll need to stand up and put on her best Goddess mask, and be very, very divine.

It’s just Rose, though, so she stays where she is, bonelessly pooled on the prickly-hot stone.

"Hello!" She manages, and her tongue feels glued into place. Water is optional too, but it makes talking easier. Maybe she should have brought some.

"Good afternoon, Nepeta. I take it you’re well?" Rose sits down on the bare rock, her orange robes spilling out around her, and draws Nepeta’s legs over her lap, stroking aimless patterns down the length of her calves. There were boots there, earlier, but much like everything in this place, clothes obey the whims of gods, and she’s bare legged now, in a prime state for being petted and prattled to, while the sun beats down, down, down.

“‘M fine. Always fine. It’s nice, not having to worry unless I want to.” 

"Indeed."

Sometimes, Rose worries even when she doesn’t want to. For Nepeta, even though she still calls it new, it’s easy to forget that there was ever anything before this place. The dream bubbles are hazy and half-recalled, unless she particularly wants to remember them. Alternia is much the same. Her memories of Pounce are bright and vivid. She can count the exact number of bolts that were in Equius’s workshop the first day he let her down into it. But going hungry when she hurt herself in the bright season of her third sweep and couldn’t hunt, that’s something she doesn’t want to remember, and so she doesn’t. The terror of not being able to breathe, or not being able to move of think or exist anymore is distant and unknowable. She’s been alive for centuries, now, and she only remembers what she wants to remember. Only worries when she wants to worry.

For Rose, though, with her picky, tricky mind, it doesn’t work that way.

Rose is worrying right now. Nepeta can feel it in the silence between them, and the way her fingers are stroking the same precise path down Nepeta’s calves, and in the back of her mind, where she feels hearts and loves and hates and souls that all unravel in front of her, like breathing.

"I bet we could make Dirk make you forget about it," Nepeta offers, because Terezi can’t pluck the memory out, it’s too integral to who Rose is, and Nepeta herself doesn’t dare break something she finds so beautiful. A lifetime of watching Equius break the things he loves best has taught her not to risk it. But Dirk is a precise sort of man, he could cut out that part of Rose, and not hurt anything around it.

It’s an offer as old as the world, and it never goes anywhere. They sit in sun and silence for a while longer, Nepeta lounging and Rose staring at the distant shape of Kanaya, at the bottom of the canyon.

What Rose says is, "I don’t understand how anyone can even look at me."  

What Nepeta hears is ‘I’m sorry and I don’t know why. Everyone else has forgiven and forgotten, and I can’t. I’m stuck. And I’m sorry for that too.’

Nepeta hauls herself up onto her elbows, smiling a fanged grin that would have set the Rose of centuries ago, who still had the mortal fear of such things, on edge. It’s cute, now. “We look at you beclaws you’re pretty.”

It doesn’t solve the problem, but Rose smiles anyway, and Nepeta surges up to kiss the last dredges of self-loathing out of her expression, at least for a little while. 

Then, because she might be a a tired, sun-soaked meowbeast goddess, she’s also still a Rogue, she wraps Rose up in a hug too tight to escape, and plunges them both off the edge of the cliff, screaming with delight as Rose hisses something insulted that the wind whips away.

She can fly, they both can, but neither of them does. In ticking seconds, the voices of startled wrigglers break through the howl of the air, and then, as the dusty ground races up to meet them, Kanaya’s power curls around them both, drawing them to a slow stop, and freezing them a good eight feet off the ground, limbs pinned immobile in their parody of a suicidal embrace.

"What do you two think you’re doing? I am attempting to give these children an important history lesson."

The kids are all giggling wildly, amused by the show of power, and Kanaya’s frown is melodramatic and obviously fake.

"Why," Rose replies, while Nepeta makes faces at one of the nearest wrigglers, "We have come to help, of course. What ever else would we be doing, jumping off of cliffs in the middle of the day?"


End file.
